The Invisible Hand of Fate
"The Invisible Hand of Fate" is the third episode in the third season of The Venture Bros. Plot After slipping in his bathroom and falling, Billy Quizboy recovers several lost memories. Billy is about to shout accusations at Pete White when White knocks Billy unconscious with a Playstation 2 and phones Brock. A flashback story then begins, showing Billy on a game show called "Quizboys" hosted by Pete White. White wears makeup and a wig to hide his albinism. Billy writes down an incorrect answer but it is changed to the correct answer before his turn, thus winning him the game. The other contestant accuses Billy of cheating, which blows open Billy and White's winning scheme to the public. In the dressing room after the game, White reveals his albinism to Billy. Pete White travels with Billy as Billy competes in a series of "underground" quiz challenges to finance a roadtrip to the Venture compound with the hopes of gaining employment as a scientist and a lab assistant. They arrive just as the OSI is hauling away a clearly disturbed Myra Brandish while Dr. Venture speaks with an agent. (Clearly visible are a baby Dean and Hank in the background, being held by H.E.L.P.eR.) After being denied jobs, White enlists Billy in what they believe is another quiz contest but is actually a dog fight. Billy loses the fight along with an eye, a hand, and all of his previous winnings (since White had placed a bet on Billy). Brock Samson and Colonel Hunter Gathers, two agents of OSI, have been tracking Billy Quizboy. They provide Billy with a robotic hand and eyeball in a plan to infiltrate the Guild of Calamitous Intent. A Professor Fantomos at "State University" is believed to be recruiting students into the Guild. Billy is enrolled in Fantomos's class and finds that most of his classmates have major deformities. Fantomos asks Billy to assist him with an experiment, because of an impressive essay Billy had turned in. Unbeknown to his professor, OSI had cheated for Billy and had Stephen Hawking write the paper for him. Fantomos is attempting to use a nuclear-powered machine to grow new limbs, as he was born with deformed, shrunken arms and legs and uses robotic appendages that fit over his real ones. The experiment goes awry when Billy has to shut the machine down using a technique he should know, but doesn't because he cheated on his paper, and Billy's electronic eye is ripped from his head in the chaos. Professor Fantomos's once deformed limbs enlarge to normal size and become invisible, gaining the power to kill through touch and thus becomes the current-day Phantom Limb. As punishment for their failure, Colonel Gathers is transferred to Guam and Brock Samson is apparently reassigned (by a Sgt. Hatred looking superior later seen donning a Guild ring) to be Dr. Venture's bodyguard. Billy's memory is wiped by OSI and Brock delivers Billy to a disheveled Pete White. The post-credits scene returns to the present as Billy awakens and angrily attacks Brock, prompting White to smash him over the head a second time. Cultural references *According to Jackson Publick, Fantomos is based on Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre's creation Fantômas.http://jacksonpublick.livejournal.com/22251.html?thread=2418667#t2418667 In addition, the concept of a heriditary costumed identity is a further reference to The Phantom, the basis for Phantom Limb's costume and whom Fantomos's presumed father loosely resembles. *When Pete White calls Brock on the phone, he identifies himself as "Casper" and informs "Goldilocks" that "Little Nemo has fallen out of bed". *Professor Fantomos tells Billy that as the roommate of a suicide, he is automatically granted a 4.0 for the semester. This is a common urban legend on college campuses. * Hunter's reference to the Bilderberg Group deciding to bring down the Berlin Wall at their last meeting would place this episode between May 15 and November 9 of 1989. *Professor Fantomos references a painting on his office wall and speaks of "Costumed Adventurers", a reference to Watchmen. The painting shows a character wearing a common domino mask, like the one worn by The Comedian in Watchmen, or any number of similar superheroes. *During the 'Quizdome' sequence, the guy on the left has the Watchmen smiley face on his shirt. *The game show and bar sequence may be a reference to Magnolia. The OSI sequences are replete with multiple references: *The OSI fight scene, theme song and main enemy (Cobra/Sphinx) are based on the '80s cartoon series G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, as is the tendency for outlandish costumes. *The OSI uniforms bear a striking resemblance to the Agents of SHIELD from Marvel comics, though it is noted there is no longer a dress code later in the show - also allowing some Agents to dress flamboyantly, as appropriate for a G.I. Joe Parody. *The OSI theme features references to the famous photographs of South Vietnam general Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing a prisoner and Lynndie England abusing Abu Ghraib prisoners. * The "no-killing" policy of G.I. Joe is mocked as several enemy combatants are seen horrifically killed, including one Sphinx (Cobra) pilot who safely parachutes out as his plane is hit, a G.I. Joe trademark, only to be brutally shot and killed as he floats to the ground. * The leader of SPHINX is a man in a metal mask strongly resembling G.I. Joe villain Destro during his Iron Grenadier incarnation. *In the OSI fight scene, the enemy force, Sphinx, use a hovering personnel carrier, which is clearly modeled after the Cobra helecarrier from the intro to GI Joe: The movie *A group of OSI agents strongly resemble the Village People, which Hunter remarks upon bitterly. *One of the 'Village People' OSI agents Hunter and Brock talks to is a man in a sailor outfit code-named 'Shore Leave', a parody of the G.I. Joe character Shipwreck. *The 'Village People' agents compare Hunter and Brock to Wayland Flowers and his puppet named Madame. *The 'Village People' agents also chant "Yo-S.I.", a parody of the "Yo-Joe" of G.I. Joe. *Race Bannon from Jonny Quest is seen in the OSI building apparently working as a torturer. *The OSI officer calls Brock "Sancho Panza" as an insult, telling him that his "windmill-chasing days are over". *The billboard on the road to Mr. White's trailer, displaying "If you lived here, you'd be home by now," is reminiscent of the billboard which Marty McFly sees in Back to the Future Part II ("Hill Valley’s Newest Homes: HILLDALE. If you lived here…you’d be home by now!"). Connections to other episodes *Colonel Gathers makes several references to his desire for a sex-change operation, which happens in the episode "Assassinanny 911". He sarcastically proclaims "and I wanted to be born with big beautiful tits!" and dresses as a female cheerleader. *Professor Impossible's name is shown being removed from the door of the university's science department (in a scene reminiscent of a similar incident in the film The Hudsucker Proxy, even including the bald janitor and only half the name scraped away). Stephen Colbert, the voice of Professor Impossible, chose not to return to the show this season. Publick further stated that Professor Impossible's title being removed was not his way of showing disdain for Colbert leaving the show and that an early draft of the script contained a scene where it is revealed that Professor Impossible was forced to leave the university due to a scandal involving a student named Sally. *A young Doctor Girlfriend is a student of professor Fantomos. *A pre-villain Sergeant Hatred, named Sgt. Haine (Haine is French for hatred), is seen at the end of the episode as one of Brock's superiors in OSI. He also dons a Guild of Calamitous Intent ring in the end montage. *Race Bannon is seen torturing someone briefly. He had appeared in Ice Station Impossible in which Brock mentions knowing him. *Steve Summers is briefly seen walking through an OSI base shot *Agent Hauser is briefly seen in the OSI sequence *Professor Fantomos asks Billy if his mechanical hand was based on a design by Mike Sorayama, from the episode "Past Tense" and comments on him being his favorite pupil. *In "Victor. Echo. November." the Monarch relates to JollyRancher82 the origins of Phantom Limb and mentions the muscle growth accelerator. Though his imagined depiction was less flattering, he essentially got all the details right, including Billy's involvement. A few other connections to that episode include #21's belief that Billy won "a bunch of money" on the gameshow "Card Sharks" and Billy mentioning he did not know where he got his mechanical hand from. Production notes *This was the first episode produced for season three, even though it aired third. *The blackboard in Professor Fantomos's classroom has "V.B. S3" (V'enture '''B'ros. 'S'eason '''3) as a portion of an equation. *Master Billy Quizboy's last name is revealed to be "Whalen" in this episode. *Kimson Albert's thematic nickname in the credits this episode is "The Nozzle." *There is a poster of Klaus Nomi briefly shown in Pete White's dressing room *Furthering the sexualized humor about members of the OSI, the name SPHYNX may be a pun on the word sphincter which shares the same word origin as sphinx, and is therefore a further gag on their sexuality. References The Invisible Hand of Fate